Good riddance: LGBT pols, activists happy to see Romney's campaign sputtering to a halt

With just 51 percent of the vote in Massachusetts, former governor Mitt Romney barely squeaked out a win in his home state - well, one of his three home states, that is - on Super Tuesday. That tells you about all you need to know about the state of his presidential campaign: Mitt Romney laid an egg. It might be a $35 million Faberg? egg, but it's still an egg. Not surprisingly, members of the local LGBT community certainly aren't shedding any tears over Romney's likely exit from the presidential stage, which is expected to come sooner rather than later.

Headlines like "Romney's big push nets little," and "Romney hangs in balance" certainly don't bode well for the future of Romney's candidacy. In a morning-after analysis on WBUR, Republican political consultant Todd Domke opined that while former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee now appears to be campaigning for vice president, "I think for Romney it's over."

Arizona Sen. John McCain emerged as the clear GOP frontrunner from the 21 Republican contests held on Feb. 5 leaving Romney and his aides huddled in Boston the day after to determine his next course of action, according to news reports, although he pledged in a primary night speech to continue his campaign. But with McCain's wins in delegate-rich states like California, New York and New Jersey, Romney is facing increasingly long odds in winning the nomination.

Reached by phone the morning after Super Tuesday, many of the LGBT activists contacted by Bay Windows initially responded with snickers when asked for their thoughts about Romney's poor showing on Feb. 5. "I can't stop smiling," said Gary Daffin, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus (MGLPC). "Has there ever been anybody that's been so thoroughly hated by both sides of the aisle? He's done."

"I think maybe it's too glib, but my immediate reaction was I think Republicans found out that the emperor had no clothes," said state Rep. Liz Malia. "I'm not surprised in a lot of ways, but I was also really worried he was going to end up tapping into some font of credibility that he otherwise wouldn't have gotten. But I'm very relieved he's not a viable candidate at this point in time."

Such reactions, are, of course, justified given the way in which Romney laid the groundwork for his presidential campaign on the backs of the Bay State's LGBT community while he was still governor. As has been well-documented on these pages and elsewhere, Romney began his efforts to appeal to the conservative religious Republican base by becoming a vocal critic of the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court's November 2003 Goodridge decision. In speeches around the country Romney criticized the court ruling and spoke incredulously of LGBT couples having children. He penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal advising other states on how to avoid Massachusetts' fate with regard to marriage equality. He testified before a congressional committee in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment. And Romney repeatedly cajoled the state legislature to take up an anti-gay marriage amendment, in addition to dropping $10,000 into the coffers of the Massachusetts Family Institute, the organization that spearheaded efforts to roll back equal marriage rights.

David Wilson was among a handful of Goodridge plaintiffs who met with Romney in his office in early 2004, just after the Journal op-ed was published. The meeting came about only after the plaintiffs, along with their attorney Mary Bonauto of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), staged a press conference outside his office. Wilson recalled that the governor "was extremely disrespectful to the plaintiff couples and their families when we met with him in his office." Romney was unaware that some of the plaintiff couples had children who were in need of the legal protections that come with marriage, said Wilson. "He completely dismissed us as couples and families."

Romney continued his anti-gay rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail, running ads in Iowa touting his opposition to marriage equality, for instance, and emphasizing in his stump speeches the need for all children to have married, opposite-sex parents. He also backtracked on his previously stated support for employment non-discrimination and hate crimes protections and generally distanced himself from any pro-gay sentiments he once expressed, which contributed in part to his being labeled a flip-flopper.

Wilson said that Romney's poor showing in the presidential primaries sends a message "that treating a group of people like he has treated the gay and lesbian couples and families from Massachusetts is just not acceptable. ... He's certainly on the wrong side of history regarding civil rights. I think it's the message that should be delivered to him and to people like him."

State Rep. Carl Sciortino has a keepsake copy of Romney's 2003 gubernatorial proclamation in support of the annual Gay/Straight Youth Pride March on the wall of his office. "I think it shows his very quick progression of hypocrisy," said Sciortino. Indeed, a few short years later, Romney attempted to disband the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth when he thought it was funding the march.

Grace Sterling Stowell, the executive director of BAGLY, says Romney's failure to gain traction has broader implications. "[A]s governor he was working against our interests, and especially towards the end as he tried to market himself as a clear conservative towards his constituents," Stowell points out. "And to see that strategy failing is a good thing and helps our chances of getting someone as president who supports us and will address the issues of the community."

Curt Rogers, the executive director of the Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project, also never thought twice about a President Romney. And in the end, he said, "I think his demise was what I originally thought, that people would see through him."

Tom Barbera of the Gay and Lesbian Labor Activist Network (GALLAN) expressed a similar sentiment, albeit a bit more bluntly: "I think he represents the worst ideals of a politician in this country," said Barbera. "And I am glad that he is not going anywhere."

Last, Susan Ryan-Vollmar, the former editor-in-chief of Bay Windows who now works as the communications director for the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, expressed relief with Romney's poor showing Feb. 5.

"I'm glad I don't have to eat that editorial," she said, referring to a Feb. 24, 2005 column in which she wrote that Romney's presidential ambitions were so far-fetched that she would "literally eat this editorial if I'm wrong. Mitt Romney will not be elected president in 2008."

Ryan-Vollmar questioned the wisdom of Romney aligning himself ideologically with anti-gay right-wingers like Focus on the Family's James Dobson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins and the Rev. Pat Robertson. "Why anyone as personally accomplished as Romney would want to politically align himself with these miscreants is a mystery," she wrote. "Unless, of course, there's no mystery to it at all: These are Mitt Romney's personal beliefs and he's been lying to us all along. Either way, it's not going to get him to the White House."